Heads Must Roll At Zimsec For English Paper 2 Leak: High Court

The High Court in Harare yesterday called for an overhaul of the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council system with Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo calling for the firing of over the individuals responsible for leaking public examinations.

Justice Loice Matanda Moyo sitting with Justice Priscilla Munangati-Manongwa, said it was surprising that no firing was done at Zimsec. Said Justice Matanda-Moyo:

The whole system needs overhaul. Heads must roll. It is quite surprising that nothing is being done to the officials. This is a problem caused by officials at Zimsec. It cannot be business as usual.

Justice Munangati-Manongwa read minutes from Zimsec on the deliberations and recommendations made before the examination body ordered a resit of the examination. Officials seem to acknowledge being incompetent. Said Justice Munangati-Manongwa:

Going by this statement they are acknowledging bungling. They are found wanting. This has been acknowledged by the board members who then went on to suggest remedies to the matter.

She also queried why Zimsec had chosen a bracket punishment when it could have dealt with the cheating students to which Zimsec lawyer Mr Zvobgo Tawanda Zvobgo his client wanted to preserve the integrity of the country’s examination system.

The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) is an autonomous parastatal under the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. ZIMSEC was setup as a result of the 1994, Zimbabwe School Examinations Council Act. Amoung other reasons, the examinations were localised to ensure the end of colonial... Read More About Zimbabwe School Examinations Council

The High Court of Zimbabwe is one of the Superior Courts of Zimbabwe. The High Court deals at first instance with all high value and high importance cases. It also has a supervisory jurisdiction over all subordinate courts and tribunals. Appeals from the High Court... Read More About High Court

2 Comments

This is very disturbing how on earth is the rewrite going to maintain the integrity of our education system? In actual fact this is an acknowledgement of a weak system that has an unbelievable way of handling such matters – Why bracket punishment? Could they not trek down the students who cheated and the authorities responsible for the paper leak? How then can we be guaranteed that this is not going to happen on this rewrite and in future. What assurance do we have that this has not been happening since Zimsec came into being, what of the other papers now, could it be only this paper in question that leaked? What of the other A level (30 Points) and the grade 7 -4s are they justified? This makes the credibility of whole system questionable. Why not punish only those that cheated and value the work of innocent genuine students? This can be an encouragement to genuine hard workers and is a better way of maintaining credibility and integrity of the exam board, zimsec and the society at large. Our education system has been ranked high internationally of late, have you considered what this rewrite will do to this ranking? Our students enroll internationally, where in this decision are we considering credibility of their results should credit transfer be required? We seem to be having more questions than answers on this matter, we are better than this!!! Highly disturbed citizen.